Armchair Anonymous: Generous Hospitality

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous, I'm Dan Buckley, I'm joined by Pussyvon Willoughby. Pussyvon Pussy.

You might want to go back, then.

Go back. Get out of here. Go back. Get out of here and go back.

No, but this is a fun episode, though.

This is. This is, acts of hospitality.

Yeah.

Life-affirming. Yes, yes. It's meet-cutes. Don't. Don't.

Aw.

Please enjoy Acts of Hospitality. Hard times come and go.

My life, I had them both.

If ever one thing you gotta know, I'ma keep on shining.

How are you? I am so good. Why do you have such a professional setup?

I can't take the credit for this. This is my husband's. So he has his own podcast. he's previously done, web series, all this stuff. So he set me up.

He did. He doesn't hate us.

No, absolutely not. No.

Okay, wonderful. And where in the country are you?

I am in Denver right now. Oh. Lived here for a couple years, yeah.

Did you meet your husband there?

No, actually. That's a whole other city and tale.

Oh, my God. That's another prompt.

Where are you from originally?

Actually, I'm from Georgia. Oh.

What part?

I'm from outside of Athens area. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Maysville Commerce Area, where the Tinker Outlets were maybe.

Oh, yeah. I know about the outlets.

Of course. Yes.

Tinker Outlets.

So that is where I grew up.

Nice.

You've got that cute Georgia. Yeah, you do.

It's very familiar to me.

I get my peaches down in Georgia. That's all I'm thinking about.

I asked that about if you met your husband there, because I just heard that Denver has the highest population of single men in the country.

Interesting. I did not know that.

That kind of makes sense, because it's dudes going out there to rock climb and snowboard.

Well, that's a stereotype.

Yeah, I think it's a good one, yeah. That's one I believe in. Okay, so, you were the recipient of a very extreme act of hospitality? I was.

So actually, my story takes place in San Diego.

Oh, okay.

In 2018, I was a travel nurse and I was heading out there for a job. I was actually leaving Georgia, typically in between contracts. And I'm sorry, I don't know how familiar you guys are with travel nursing.

I was just about to ask. Can you tell us what a travel nurse is?

Typically, like a hospital or a clinic, if they're understaffed for whatever reason, they'll hire a travel nurse for a short period of time, typically about three months. We come in, we help out. If they need us longer and we want to stay longer, we will do that. Most of the time. also, we're finding our own housing while we are doing this.

Oh, boy.

So I started getting a little anxious there.

Sure.

I even texted my roommate, who wasn't coming until the next day. Her name's Alex. And I was like something didn't feel right about that conversation. I'm not going to feel good until the keys are in my hands. And so, lucky for me, you know, I've got a good four, four and a half hour flight to sit there and panic and dwell.

Three months. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm standing outside the apartment building for I don't know how long. And then someone took pity on me and let me in. You have to have a fob to go up the elevator. So I find a housekeeper. I'm like, hey, can you please let me up to my floor?

Oh, no.

213 is literally like a storage closet. What? And so I like run back to the housekeeper. And I'm like, apartment 213, like where is that at? And he's like, no, sorry, that's not a thing.

Oh, boy.

All of that anxiety that I had been dwelling on. And, by the way, up until today, I was feeling great. I thought we were good to go.

You're going to San Diego, sunshine. Yeah. Surfboards, yeah.

I was there. I was ready. So I'm like, okay. I'm homeless. Like.

Yeah, yeah.

So I go downstairs and I'm talking to someone in the lobby that works there. And she's like, you're actually the third person this has happened to. No. So this guy knew what he was doing. Yeah.

Your dog. My dog.

People are just staring. No one's like, ma'am, are you okay? They're just staring because they walk in and out of this lobby. I start calling like my mom. I called my friend Liz.

It's the right medicine for the occasion.

Exactly. I tried a couple more hotels and then I was like, you know what? I give up. Let's go. At this time, they live like northern San Diego.

Oh, so nice.

Yeah. And I'm like, this is not necessary. Any couch is fine.

I can sleep in your garage in one of the cars.

Exactly. I will take anything. So, as I'm telling him multiple times, please stop doing whatever you're doing. I find out they also put their dog in the garage for the night, so there wasn't any issues between mine and theirs. Oh.

Well, we've even had prompt.

Oh, I submitted to that one too. Oh.

I was thinking while you were talking, this could have gone either way. Yes. Yeah.

It's funny. I was so determined I needed to be by myself that night and like wallow in my self-pity. And instead, I needed a hug, and they were there to give me one. They had breakfast ready for me. Patsy actually works in real estate, and so she was trying to help me find a place to live.

Oh, that's nice.

Oh, boy. Again, they were so supportive and they're like, oh yeah, any friend of our nephew's is a friend of ours.

That's a stretch.

I wouldn't necessarily say we're friends. We're like acquaintances. We've met a couple times.

Any name our nephew knows of, we'll definitely host. Sure, yeah.

So my roommate comes and we end up staying in like a holiday inn for a week and then end up finding a not furnished apartment, which that's one thing I didn't mention before. We typically get furnished places, right? We're not going back and forth with a couch across the country. And so I had an air mattress for a few months that I slept on, which is fine. When you're in your 20s, you can do that.

Hold on.

He came into town for work and we went to dinner. He did not let me pay for it. And that actually was my first date with my husband.

What is so much? Derek. Wow. By the way, this is so telling. It's wonderful.

Yes, a meet cute.

By the way, I wanted to do a prompt once about meet cutes, and that was shut down. And this is evidence. You 100% should.

Well, because I don't think the average American knows the term meet cute. We can take that.

Oh, I disagree.

I learned it three years ago.

Anyone who's seen The Holiday, which is a lot of people, knows about the meet cute.

That's how I know it.

Yep.

That's an amazing story. Now they're your dad and mom-in-law?

Aunt and uncle-in-law.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yes, we've been married now for three years. We have a beautiful baby girl. Oh, my Lord.

Oh, my God.

This is beyond good hospitality. This, like, led to a whole life.

Did you name the baby, the name of the person who scammed you? Who defrauded you? Because that'd be cool.

He was later found on a scammers beware website.

Was he arrested when you saw him on the scammers website?

No. And, you know, I filed a police report, but because it happened over the internet and, like, not actually in San Diego County, I had to do, like, a federal police report, and I'm still waiting for them to contact me about that.

Well, right, because he likely wasn't even in California. Like, we're thinking. he's a local San Diegoan, right? Right. Or I am, but he could have been in Russia.

Absolutely.

All in, you lost, what'd you lose, two grand, three grand?

I lost about $2,500.. I had to pay a little bit more for the pet fee for my dog, and so my roommate also, she lost about $1,500, $2,000 as well.

Boy, you're a real dick scam artist. when you're even charging for animals. I know. Like, that seems like a gouge on top of a gouge. You now have this beautiful baby.

Absolutely. For the longest time, I was like, oh, I owe you. Like, you know, you did this, and I'm like, now he owes me. He has a wife and a baby. We are more than even.

Yeah, it wasn't even his house. It wasn't even his hospitality, really. Oh, yeah, no. He just called. Wow.

I love that.

Yeah, total happy ending.

Yeah, I'm so ecstatic that I got to actually spend some time with you.

We're so excited. we met you, Lauren. This was awesome. Really quick, what are his podcasts?

So his podcast was The Future of Work. He took kind of a little hiatus from it for a little while and is going to start that up again, but actually make it more of a web series instead of a podcast. Oh, okay. So if anyone is interested in that or listened to it before, it should be coming soon.

Wonderful. Well, Lauren, it's such a delight to meet you. You make the state of Georgia proud. Yeah, absolutely. You should be thrilled.

You're doing God's work.

You're doing God's work.

Well, thank you. We actually used to live in L.A. for a little while, and we're hoping to get back there eventually. We loved it and miss it. Yeah.

Lauren, come on over.

Come on out.

Don't tempt me.

All right. Bye. Take care. Bye. Oh, that was sweet.

I did think there could have been a third part of that story where he was the con man.

Oh, and he orchestrated the whole thing because he saw her in the airport once.

Yep. That would have been cool.

Hello.

Ian, do you have a MediPort? What am I seeing on your chest?

Oh, it's a tattoo. Oh.

Okay, okay, okay. That's better. That's better. I thought I was going to then have to talk for a minute and back myself out of that question.

I hated that.

No, it's a family tattoo. Oh. All the men in my family have the same Celtic cross, and it's this one. Really?

How cool. Where are you and the men in your family from, and where do you live?

Well, that's from our Irish side, but I live just outside of Denver, in Aurora, Colorado. Okay.

We had another Denver on here.

Your second Denver.

That's pretty cool.

We're all cool.

I love your hair, Ian.

Thank you. Yeah, it's nice.

Yeah, let's start there.

Can I say something real quick before we jump in?

Yeah, yeah. Well, let's ask Ian. Can Monica interject with something?

I'll allow it.

Okay, thank you, thank you. I'll allow it.

When you first said, is that ... I'm sorry to bring it back to your faux pas.

Yeah, yeah.

When you first said, is that a Mediport, or whatever? It sounded like you said, is that a neti pot?

Oh. I heard that too. Okay. Right? And I was like- Well, by the way, they're not called a Mediport.

Oh, that goes into your heart.

It's when you're getting real serious treatment.

Right, so that's an intense question to ask.

It is a very intense question, but, Ian, would you agree, if you had your shirt unbuttoned with your Mediport, which is not called exposed, you're letting me know I'm not embarrassed about this?

Yeah, I was calling attention to my fake cancer.

You're right.

I had a port. Remember my port?

Yeah, I do, I do, I do.

I didn't mind at all if someone was like, what's going on with that port? In fact, I'd almost prefer the opportunity to tell them, don't worry, I'm not dying. I just have a massive infection.

It's even better. I'm not dying. I just have a family tradition.

True.

Okay, that was fun. Okay, thank you for the sidebar. Ian, please tell us about this extreme act of hospitality you were the recipient of.

This takes place over Christmas 2018 in the wonderful country of Vietnam, which is one of my favorites.

Oh, wow.

Okay. Me and my best friend Sean, he's my best friend Aaron Weakley, we went through high school and college together, graduating college in 2017.. And we were like, just getting into adult life. And we decided we were going to take a trip to make sure we were still young and cool and fresh. We were inspired by an old British Top Gear special.

Who's the Jeremy Clarkson in the group? Is that you or your friend?

Oh, God. I don't know. I'm not punching producers.

Okay. God, you're knowledgeable. Ian's on fire. He's sharp.

So we leave Chicago. We fly east to Qatar. Ding, ding, ding. Qatar GP.

God, I love Ian. The Grand Prix was there last weekend. Oh, my God, you guys. It was a fucking shit show. Everyone overheated.

Get a room, you guys.

Let me change your port for you. Oh, what's next?

We have our layover in Qatar, and we continue east to Saigon, Vietnam. We don't have a plan. This is kind of the way we traveled. We would go on tour a lot in college.

This explains the entire thing. He was in a band. Yeah. Ian was in a band.

Ian was obviously always in a band.

That was the missing piece.

Yeah, we were musicians in college. Yeah, of course. And we would always tell people, like, we've got a plan. There was not a plan. Right, right.

The plan was arrive. Correct. Correct.

So we arrive. We find a place to rent some motorcycles, and we rent these pair of Honda CRF 450s.

Oh, like dual sporty bikes?

Yes, Enduros. We're not really sure exactly what we're going to run into. We're planning to go through some rural areas. We've got our backpacks. We've got hammocks in there, which was the plan for sleeping.

Oh, boy. Okay.

Without any knowledge of the natural wildlife.

Zero. But we've got spirit. We get on these bikes, and we start riding through Saigon. About, like, 80% of the population in Vietnam rides motorcycles. It's just motorcycles everywhere.

And you can ride them absolutely anywhere, right? I mean, you can be on a sidewalk. You can be in a gutter.

There's zero rules.

Right.

We quickly just get into that vibe. We eventually make it to Vung Tau, which is a coastal city. So this is part one of the hospitality we received. This is Christmas Day. We're rolling into Vung Tau, and we rock up to this tiki bar.

Oh, sure, sure.

It's Christmas Day. There's nobody in there except for these two guys, Seamus and Iva.

Perfect.

They're Scottish immigrants to Vietnam. So, obviously, we start, like, chatting them up immediately. We offer to buy Seamus some drinks, only to find out that he owns this bar.

Oh, wow. Wonderful.

He's bringing us out more and more things. I mean, we're getting hammered. And then in the corner is Seamus' wife, Lynn, and their son, Leon, who's, like, three going on four. It's a whole family affair. at this bar.

Oh, wow.

Just so adorable. We're having a fantastic time. They invited us to stay with them and go to baby Leon's birthday, which is the next day.

Oh, my God, a Christmas baby.

Boxing Day baby. Yeah. We're not able to stay for the birthday party, unfortunately. We tell them that.

Okay.

Scoot it out before the party.

Yeah, talk about dine and dash. I know.

Well, we haven't even dined yet, because we tell them we can't stay. And Lynn wordlessly leaves and comes back with these just giant plates of food and just starts feeding us in this bar. So we're all just, like, sitting together, having this, like, magical Christmas dinner in this tiki bar in Vietnam. It was wonderful. So that's part one.

Okay, good, good. It takes a turn.

Yeah, a little bit. Okay. So we sleep there. We decide, we're rolling out. We're continuing on north.

Happy birthday, Liam. We just can't stick around for the party, but happy birthday, bud.

We're in a band, and so we have stuff to do.

Yeah, there's people to see. There's faces to rock.

We're riding for five, six hours. We're in, I wouldn't even call it a town. It's a row of houses.

It's a kind of farmland.

And we're going around a corner, probably 45, 50 miles an hour. Sean ends up low siding through the corner. He slides and hits a three-foot concrete post that's sticking out of the ground. Ribs first. I watch him just smack, bounce off into the ravine.

Yeah, yeah.

We lay him down on this thin mat on a tile floor. So there's this group of men. They help me get this bike out of the ditch. And they just go to work. Sean's pack has been scattered all over.

Wait, what?

Does anyone go to the hospital? Wow, because he's so damaged.

But what about the hospital?

That's not on the table.

Why?

Well, okay. One, we're in super rural Vietnam. We're hours away from a hospital. Two, we've got no idea what these hospitals are like or how much they cost. We don't have travel insurance.

Wonderful.

To come and triage. for us. It was incredible.

He was Vietnamese or is he?

Yeah.

Okay.

They call like their Vietnamese friend who happens to also speak English.

Really quick, Monica's laughing. What I just heard Ian say is exactly what I think I said.

You didn't.

Okay.

He rides up, asks us what we want to do. I'm still dumb. I think I asked Sean if he can continue. I'm like, you, want to keep going? And Sean's like, yeah, absolutely not.

You want to shake it off, tiger?

Pretty much. We tell him we've got to go back to Saigon. We've got to fly home. He makes another call and these guys just show up with a van.

Oh, my gosh.

They take the back seats out of this van so that we can put our bikes in there. And we get in this van and ride back to Saigon. At this point, we'd been riding for like two or three days. It'd been three to four hours of riding a day. Yeah.

Oh, thank God.

Which was demoralizing. also. We felt like we had like conquered this country and gone so far.

Yeah, you were nine exits away.

Yeah, we were immediately back. And we're just riding back. So grateful for this town that had just come together and, like, helped us in so many ways. It was incredible. We end up just flying home.

Oh, God, the pressure on the plane.

We FaceTimed his sister-in-law, who's a nurse.

Okay.

And she was like, don't take Advil. We were like, we will stop giving him Advil now.

Wait, why? I would think that would help with the non-clotting.

It's like a blood thinner. And if he was internally bleeding, it would be not good. Leaving that town, we were just so unbelievably grateful. I hugged my Vietnamese mom. I played Thank You on Google Translate, which didn't translate it well because she did not understand it.

That's insane that they came and drove you back and brought the bikes.

We paid them, but they didn't ask for anything.

Two follow-up questions. One, for me, that would be an unresolved challenge waiting for me. I didn't get to the tip of the northern part of Vietnam.

Yeah, I'm going back.

Okay, great. Second, has it occurred to you that this was the karma for not going to Liam's birthday party? If you had stuck around for the birthday party-?

What's his name again?

It was Leon. Yeah, you got it.

Leon. Leon.

I wanted Leon to come back in the story somehow.

Like he rolled up on his fourth birthday? Yeah. Yeah, because if you would have hung out for that party, that would have probably turned into the whole day. None of this would have happened. Different time.

You're not wrong. We definitely wouldn't have made it to Hanoi or our non-refundable flights, but we didn't end up getting that refund in the end anyway.

Well, Ian, this was a fucking party.

Thank you, guys. We love everything you guys do, Armchair Expert. I obviously love F1.. It's like it was made for me.

Oh, thank you.

Take care, y'all. Bye.

Hello?

Hi!

Oh my god, I can't believe. I'm talking to you guys. What shall we call you?

So, I would like you to call me Emma, because that's a name that my dad actually wanted to name me, but then didn't win in that argument against my mom.

Do you wish you were named Emma?

No, I like my name.

Okay, good. Good for you.

And where are you, Emma?

I am in New Jersey.

Ah, wonderful. The Garden State. Yes. And you were the recipient of some extreme hospitality?

Definitely something very, very generous that took my husband and I out of a crazy, desperate situation, yes. Oh, let's hear it.

Okay, I can't wait to hear.

Okay, so a little bit of context, basically how we got fucked to begin with.

Oh, from the waist down?

Like the abdomen down, because he can't feel his stomach either and doesn't have his core muscles.

Okay. Yes.

So, in addition to that, while he was in the hospital, some things went wrong, and then he also suffered a brain injury in the hospital.

Oh, my God.

Wait, wait, wait. How does one suffer a brain injury? Fell out of a bed or something?

No, it was more so. he started having seizures, and the response time was not fast enough. It took about five hours for somebody to come. What?

Oh, my gosh. Ugh. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm so sorry to hear that.

Yeah. Thank you, I appreciate that.

How long had you been married when this happened?

So, actually, at the time we were engaged, we got married about a year after his accident.

Okay. I don't know why I'm inclined to say this, but I'm very proud of you. Some lesser people would have bounced. Yeah.

Absolutely. I have a lot of friends who couldn't even handle this situation. I'm sure. So, yeah, he spent about four months in the hospital, and then another three months in an acute rehab setting before his insurance decided that, since he wasn't working anymore, they were going to cut him off.

Okay.

I was freaking out, obviously, because without insurance, how does one pay for such a high skilled level of care? And his doctor, we will call her Dr. B, she was amazing. She stepped in and was like, I'm going to take care of this, don't worry. Because at the time we thought that he was going to still be in the rehab for like another two months at least.

For two months? Yes.

I'm a teacher, so how am I supposed to pay that?

That's $360,000 for two months. I just did the math.

I couldn't even do the math. I teach English.

Okay, you stay out of math, stay out of math. Let me handle the math, you handle the English. I can barely read.

Sounds good. She was like, it's just a formality, just sign the form. And I trusted her at that point, so I signed the form. It took about a month and a half to actually make all of the arrangements, but he did come home and I became his primary caregiver. And about a month after we were home, I got my first bill.

Wow. So half a million bucks. Did you have that lying around?

As a teacher?

Most definitely not.

Hold on, let's take half a second. This is too much. Let's take half a second. You now have a loved one that you'll be caring for. That's big change.

So, luckily, I had a follow-up appointment scheduled with this doctor, who assured me that everything was going to be fine. So we go to this appointment, she comes in, she asks how we're doing, and I'm like, not great. We just got this crazy astronomical bill. And she said to me, didn't I tell you not to worry about it? I'm going to take care of it.

Oh boy.

She does her assessment of my husband, decides that everything is going well with him. back at home. We leave, and I'm trying so hard to trust her, but I am a rule follower and I have a bill in front of me here. So the following month in the mail comes another bill. This time, however, it says balance due is $0..

Oh, she paid it?

What?

Oh, my God.

No.

Oh man. Dr. B.

Oh my God. Wow. That's nuts.

Do you think she paid it or do you think she-?

Negotiated.

Right. Like she said, handled it. She would still have to pay a bunch of it. Yeah. That's amazing.

Absolutely. And I have loved her from the beginning, because as soon as my husband came in, he wasn't supposed to be her patient, from what I'm told, but she specifically said that she loves getting young men as patients because they are exceptionally tenacious and resilient and strong-willed. And he definitely proved to be, because at this point we're five years out from his accident and he's talking again, which they never thought that he was going to talk again. Wow. He's able to stand, not on his own, but able to stand, which they never thought was going to happen.

No kidding.

And so how much of your day is still caring for him? What does he require? Well,

he has about 16 hours a day of nursing. that accounts for me sleeping at night and then going to work. Like I said, I'm a teacher, so I didn't stop teaching.

Good.

I get home around three o'clock and that's when the nurse leaves and then I take over his care from that point on.

Okay. All in all, what are we giving this experience? Things are good. They're stressful. It's an ongoing challenge.

Definitely got its ups and downs, but overall, I mean, I love him so much and we've just gotten used to things. at this point. We just try to find joy, at least in all the ways that we can. Oh,

what an inspiration. Emma, you got me a little well up. This is becoming a pattern.

He cries all the time. now, though, so it's not even special.

Sorry, Emma. I'm kidding. I don't even know if I can carry on with this job.

Very,

very inspirational.

It is.

Thank you. I just want to thank you guys for your podcast, because it has helped us get through a lot of time in hospital, waiting rooms and treatments and whatnot. So thank you.

Oh my gosh. Thank you, Emma, so much.

Oh, we're so grateful to have you guys listening.

I feel terrible about myself. Do you? No, I don't.

He always says this and then I never feel that way.

I feel grateful.

If it makes you feel better, you are one of the few people that can make my husband laugh. Oh,

no, Emma,

why did you say that? Oh, Jesus, all going sideways for Monica.

Well,

I'm committed to continue doing that.

What does he like? Does he like the robot or freedom?

I bet he likes freedom. No,

I think he likes the robot.

He does like the robot.

That's our favorite part. Yeah. Well, Emma, so nice meeting you. Please tell him, we say hi.

I will.

All right. Bye.

Hello.

You're in a closet.

We've done it.

Yay,

the closet.

Hi again, Blair.

Are you recording?

I am recording on three devices.

Amazing. So we'll tell the arm cherries. We're going to be honest about this. We've already spoken to you. We spoke to you in a very dicey wifi situation.

Yeah.

And I would say word to the wise for future armchair anonymous. It's always Pacific time.

That's right.

That was part of the issue. I had like my setup plan for Eastern standard time. And then I was like, Oh shit, this is three hours later. It was going to be in the middle of my commute. So I had to improvise and be like, what's the best option here.

Well, we're very happy that you were willing to chat with us again. And it was such a good story that I'm happy to hear it all over again. Same. Really quick. Now you're in a closet and it is now, I guess, 430, your time, 420..

It's not legal here.

Oh yeah. You're in North Carolina. Which we established.

But, alas, the story does not take place in North Carolina. What year, where were you? What happened?

All right. I'm in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I've finished my sophomore year. It's 2006.. I'm 19..

You're going to triangle it.

Exactly. Three flights instead of four. The way that the pricing worked out, it made more sense for me to stay an extra night. It saved me like hundreds of dollars. So I don't necessarily have a plan for where I'm going to stay that night.

Checkout at the Hilton Times Square is noon or one. Yeah.

I actually think I had them keep my bag for a little while, you know, with like the little ticket. So I went out for like a day on my own, meandering, exploring. But it was a fantastic trip to New York. Towards the end of it, they're asking me, well, what's your plan for this last night? I'm like, I don't really know.

It's a spectrum.

I'm expecting something to materialize out of nowhere and it really doesn't. So we're getting later and later in the day and I've got to like, come up with a plan. What I did have a plan about was not spending $50 on a taxi ride by myself back to the airport in the morning. So I'm like, all right. I found out there was a shuttle from Penn Station to LaGuardia for 12 bucks.

Incredibly affordable. $12 to get to LaGuardia from Manhattan.

I kind of work backwards. That's the central plan. I'm like, all right. Penn Station, there's people hanging out there for long periods of time, waiting, sitting with bags. It's not going to necessarily look that weird if I'm hanging out there overnight, possibly grabbing a nap.

AKA sleeping at Penn Station is the game plan.

I get there somewhere in the 11 o'clock hour and I've picked my spot. I've parked it for not very long, just a few minutes, when over the kind of sound system, it's like Penn Station is closing. Everybody out. And there's definitely like workers milling about, about to like enforce this rule.

I would have been with you. I would have definitely assumed trains are coming in there all night long. Me too. I can't believe that it shuts down for some period.

I was shocked. Like what? Yeah.

So I get my bag.

I go outside of Penn Station. I'm just kind of hanging out on the sidewalk, trying to not completely freak out and come up with my next plan. So plan B is, this is the city that never sleeps. Their bars, I know, open till 4 a.m. because I've been to them.

Also, when someone enters the bar with their luggage, it's a weird look. You're assuming that the person is living outside.

Yeah, but in New York, the mean streets of New York, they don't care.

I don't know. I've done a lot of bar drinking in New York. Me too. And if someone walks in with a roll-on bag, I'm like, uh-oh, what happened here? Not in the middle of the evening.

That was definitely in my thought process. Not to mention, I'm going to be expected to spend money in a bar. A lot of the underlying part of this was like trying to keep costs low.

Just ride around with me.

And I'm like, what, seriously? Don't you have to pick up people and drop them off? And he's like, well, you can ride in the front seat. You can sleep if you want to.

Ooh, still spooks me.

It's spooky. We heard it yesterday and I still hate it.

I still hate it. Be great if you took a nap. Get comfy. Fall right asleep.

Feel comfortable to fall right asleep.

I can't properly convey why it didn't feel that creepy. He had a trusting vibe. He had a like, I'm trying to help this four-stranded person, not necessarily like predator. Right.

Okay, but you guys, first of all.

Predators don't have predator vibes.

Yes, that's the whole point. If they're good at being predators, they really are good at suppressing the predator vibe.

The ones that are bad are in jail.

Or they don't ever get anyone.

Right, right, right. Unsuccessful.

Unsuccessful predators have predator vibes.

Yeah, this is definitely optimism bordering on recklessness. Again, here we go, yeah. But at that point, that felt like a life-saving, huge weight lifted off of me option, and I was like, all right, absolutely, let's do this.

You know, I don't think I asked this yesterday, but I guess you put your bag in the trunk of the car. Yep. I then would be obsessed with if another passenger got in and had some luggage, and then they got out, I think there'd be a bag mix-up on top of everything else.

Oh, fuck. Yeah, I didn't even think of that.

Did any of the passengers he picked up have luggage with them? Did they need the trunk at all?

Not that I recall.

Okay, yeah, late at night, you're the only weirdo with a bag, I guess.

You can imagine what a 19-year-old frugal traveler has in their bag. If that bag was gone, I would not have been devastated.

Right.

Yeah, so I rode around with this guy for four or five hours. He picked up a few people, not a lot, maybe one or two an hour. So we had lots of time to get to know each other and share life stories.

Did he ignore the passengers when they were in there and just keep chatting with you? Did you guys carry on? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

I would have been like, is this guy's on a date? Right. What's going on up there? I would be very nosy and have to figure out what's going on. Never, ever gotten in a cab where there was a passenger already.

Right, I'd be like, are you getting out?

Was this a carpool cab? I don't want to go to her house first.

Wouldn't it have been great if he was picking up someone, take them to the airport? I thought about that after we recorded.

I was thinking about it while it was happening. In fact, I almost was predicting that was where the story was going to go. Oh, yeah. That would have been so convenient.

Oh, that would have been very convenient. But then it wouldn't have allowed him to display the most extreme hospitality that he did. That's right. So we're nearing 5 a.m. and we're like, all right, got to get back to Penn Station.

That's really nice.

I was like, well, I'll pay you like 20 bucks or whatever. I felt like I could afford. Yeah. He's like, no, no, no. And so he drives me all the way out to LaGuardia.

I was worried you weren't going to say it this time.

And we really needed to hear that part.

Soft marriage proposal.

Yeah, it was kind of half joking, half like, let's throw it against the wall, see if it sticks.

Half dead, serious.

Yeah. Maybe we'll run with it if it doesn't.

This could have been the most romantic story of all time. Because if you had said yes, and then he got out of the cab and joined you to fly to Austin, just left his whole life behind. That's a real movie. Just leaves the cab running with the door open. It's not his cab.

Another meet queue.

Yep. Take it to the next pitch meeting. Make sure I'm a consultant.

And how did you handle the invitation to wed?

I kind of laughed it off and was like, I got to go back to college.

I'm a child still.

Oh, I feel sweaty.

As fun as these five hours were, I do intend to court my future husband for more than five hours. Yeah. We've just had one good date is all we've had.

But he could have been from a region of arranged marriage. In which case, for him, he's like, I've gotten to know this person way more than.

Yeah. He was an Egyptian immigrant. I mean, he was single. I didn't know that. And I think he was like in his 30s, when I was 19..

You had some things to overcome. if you pursued the marriage, for sure. You wouldn't have the same references.

That's okay. You can learn.